[APWG] LICENSE of successful weed management/restoration technologies

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear All,

Ty Harrison is not on the APWG maillist yet, but has been following along
with the recent discussions via another member forwarding to him, and he
has  brought up an interesting point, that I post below with his
permission, with my reply:

Craig:  I read your "roadtest" web page and the Caltrans grant, saw your
recent pictures of the failed restorations, and read and agree with your
other recommendations as to desired standards of % area coverage by diverse
native grasses and forbs.  I agree with local seed collection and understand
the ecotype issues.  Why can't highway engineers and the agronomists which
they hire, understand simple ecology?  Do they (can they) understand why
these expensive restoration efforts in California have failed?  What will be
the consequences of this colossal waste of tax payer's money?  Ty Harrison

REPLY: Thank you for your email. The problem is that we need to admit that
we need to invest a ton of money in Tiny Test plots before we do any
large-scale roadside planting projects, so we can achieve rapid and solid
native ecosystem establishment that is weed-free.

It only took me 25 years of test plots and thousands and thousands of
monitoring measurements, until I hit upon a method, of setting up the Tiny
Test plots, over and over again, until I achieved the desired Performance
Standard.

The standard that I was shooting for 25 years ago, was 90% native cover
within two years or less, with at least one round of maintenance to
ultimately produce zero weed cover.

Working in the Tiny Test plots, the goal over time, was to whittle that
time-line and increase that percentage native cover to a shorter and
shorter time frame, with zero after-sowing maintenance as the eventual
goal.

When $450,000 for only two acres, in six years and five planting attempts
have not produced permanent results, maybe a different method needs to be
established, like a PERFORMANCE STANDARD CONTEST?

ROADSIDE CONTESTS? Instead of giving $450,000 to one University, why
doesn’t each State DOT offer a roadside restoration contest, like a
ROADSIDE INVITATIONAL and invite 20 ecological restoration professionals
to be given some local native seeds and $10,000 each for expenses, to set
up some Tiny Test plots, with a $250,000 prize for the best technologies
that produce the highest quality Performance Standards, within 90 days ?

LICENSE WINNING TECHNOLOGIES? If you spend money, without the goal of
producing LICENSED restoration technologies, with solid Performance
Standards supporting them, there is absolutely no incentive for the
grantee to ever invent anything successful.

Instead, the project could become an endless series of incomplete or
inconclusive experiments that will continue forever, as long as public
money is available.

What has been the key for failures for years, is government agencies
thinking that they can give any contractor or any University 1/2 million
dollars, and they can invent something in a couple of years that will
work, when there is no licensing agreement with the inventor, of the
resultant successful technologies.

Each State DOT should expect to license the winning technologies or any
successful technologies, and not expect to get the winning technologies
free, for the prize money

Government agencies need to start thinking of successful weed management
and successful ecological restoration technologies, need to be licensed,
just like they license all of the software for their computers.

Because all of the operating systems and all of the programs that any
State or Federal government agency uses,  are licensed technologies, why
not expect to also license weed management and restoration technologies
also?

I wrote an article about that "Does the Lack of Patent filings Indicate
that Ecological Restorationists Fail to See Themselves as Inventors or
Innovators?" ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION. (2001) 19:(2) 70-71.

I think that the group of weed management and restoration technologies
inventors should ask their government clients, about the possibility of
future licenses if they are offering the government a unique or an
innovative product?

And the government agencies, both State and Federal, could become
proactive, and only contract with contractors or universities, that offer
weed management or restoration technologies that have Performance
Standards, and then expect to license those.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333